Category Archives: Radioactive Waste

On December 2, 1942, the first high level nuclear waste in the world was created. Three quarters of a century later there is still no permanent repository for such waste. We created immensely dangerous stuff with no thought as to how to safely dispose of it.

Irradiated nuclear fuel is among the most toxic materials on earth. The waste has to be isolated from the human environment for about half a million years, a period longer than our existence as a species. Our government has existed for a mere 230 years. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been around for about …

EARLIER THIS YEAR, DESPITE YEARS OF EFFORTS by Bridge the Gap, EPA issued new Protective Action Guides (PAGs) which dramatically weaken protection of the public from exposure to radiation. The PAGs allow the public to drink water contaminated with radioactivity at levels thousands of times higher than the Safe Drinking Water Act permits, without any action taken to protect them from
such exposures.

The PAGs also would allow long-term contamination of areas so high (the equivalent of thousands of chest X-rays a year) that EPA’s own official estimates are that every fourth person would get a cancer from the radiation, …

SEVENTY YEARS AGO, A facility for testing nuclear reactors and rockets too
dangerous to be conducted near populated areas was established on the boundary of Los Angeles and Ventura Counties. Since then, the population has mushroomed, with half a million people now living within ten miles.

In 1979, Bridge the Gap brought to public attention a partial nuclear meltdown that had occurred at that Santa Susana Field Laboratory in 1959 but had been kept secret for decades. At least three other reactors suffered accidents there as well, along with numerous radioactive fires, spills, and releases. …

Appropriate toxicity criteria for human health risk assessments are critical for protecting the public from toxic materials. The federal government establishes minimum levels of protection, a floor so to speak, and California policy has long required the use of California standards when more protective than the federal ones. Consistent with this, on 11 November 2016, DTSC proposed regulations, which would have required the use of the most protective toxicity criteria.